


he will not stay for me

by AnnaofAza



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 09:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14974535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: On the night before Jim is supposed to leave for Operation Testify, he's visited by three familiar figures.Or, A Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Christmas Carol.





	he will not stay for me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missbecky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/gifts).



> To Rebecca, who waited too long for this fic.
> 
> The title is taken from this poem by A. E. Housman:
> 
> "He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?  
> He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.  
> I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,  
> And went with half my life about my ways."

Jim wakes up to the sound of people laughing.

For a moment, he wonders if he’s fallen asleep at his desk, and the Circus has gathered ‘round to have a chuckle, a brief respite from the webs and files and faceless names, but when he opens his eyes, there’s only bent but bright green grass and people lingering in mud-splattered clothes.

He’s sitting underneath the shade of a tree, its leafy branches casting him in shadows. It’s as if he’d fallen asleep, back up against the trunk.

Jim sits up, startled, and does what’s come natural to him—take in his surroundings. The crowd pays him no attention, chatting in huddled groups and slapping each other on the back. They’re young in a way that makes Jim want to grumble, long-limbed and full of boundless energy. Carefree, too—something that has also become a stranger to him. Some are leaning on a chain-link fence, others strolling off the grass.

One of the passing boys gives him a nod, and Jim stares for a moment before returning the gesture. He looks vaguely familiar, with chestnut hair and freckles, knees scratched and cricket bat swinging from his right hand.

Cricket. Has he somehow wandered onto the grounds, where Connie had drawn caricatures and signed them like a starlet? But no, this isn’t the unkempt field with patches of dry grasses, and looking around, there’s no sign of Sarratt or the bench.

It’s—but it can’t be. How—

“Jim? Taking a victory nap?”

Jim looks up into the face of Bill Haydon.

There are no spectacles jammed on top of his head, no suit with diamond patches on the elbows, no lines around his eyes, but it’s unmistakably Bill.

“What is it, Jim?” Bill asks, lightly swinging the cricket bat at his side. “Cramming session got to you?”

Jim looks down at the bat still clutched in Bill’s grasp, at his own muddied knees, at Bill’s face without so much as a scratch or scar.

Slowly, it all comes trickling back to him: Control’s utterly mad theory. Sitting in a dark room, door firmly closed behind them, a half-empty sherry bottle between them. The old, brown music case yawning emptily, charts and pens and crayons spilled on the dirty carpet. Tinker, tailor, soldier, poorman, beggarman. Stevcek. Operation Testify.

Of course. This was nothing more than a dream—no, a sliver of memory. He rarely dreamed any more about Oxford, flickers of it coming behind his eyelids: oil paint smeared down his arm, the soft crack of a cricket bat, pages turning slowly. Sometimes, a thread of a conversation replayed, the first meeting or a playful political debate. If he were lucky, he could visualize Bill, smiling so openly at him and leaning in for a kiss.

Bill shakes his head as he kneels down in front of Jim, lightly pushing at his shoulder. “Do you have a dilemma?”

“No,” Jim says and kisses him.

It used to be very easy back then. There was furtiveness not because of a fear of being discovered, but for the passion of youth. This kiss, however, is unhurried with the knowledge of the distance that will grow between them in years to come, reluctant to part.

When they do, though, Bill’s eyes are dancing. “Shall we go up to my room, then?”

“Yes,” Jim agrees. It doesn’t matter what this is; he’ll take any moment with Bill he can get, even if it’s only a fantasy. He’d forgotten how easy it was at Oxford, walking through the hallowed halls and slipping into his or Bill’s room with just a turn of a key, kissing as soon as the door was closed.

But when he turns around, ready to kiss Bill up against the door, Jim freezes. In front of him is not Bill, hair mussed from the cricket field and knees in sports gear. It’s the Bill of now—leaning against the door with a smirk and another one of his tailored suits with red socks and glasses.

“What the hell is this?” Jim demands.

“What did you expect?” Bill counters, with that infuriating smirk Jim knew so well. He then raises his arms dramatically, shaking his wrists once. “ _I wear the chain I forged in life,_ ” he declares, with a playful smile on his lips. “ _I made it link by link and yard by yard_ —”

“Enough,” Jim interrupts.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Bill protests. “ _I girded it on of my own free w_ —”

“I know the rest,” Jim says.

Bill pouts. “You never minded my speeches.”

“No,” Jim says stiffly, “but I don’t want you to be quoting Dickens at the moment. I was—”

“About to shag my younger self, I know.” Bill waves his hand. “Sorry, Jim-boy, I thought that would be a nice little conduit into this adventure, but sadly, a nostalgic shag is not on our schedule. We only have so much time before, well.”

“Time for what?” Jim snaps. This has got to be the strangest dream he’s ever had. “What in the world—”

“You’ll see,” Bill says, then in an instant, he’s young again, but in clean clothes. “Ah, that’s better. Care to follow me?”

Sighing, Jim does. “What exactly is this, if not a _nostalgic shag,_ as you called it?” he asks.

“You’ll see,” Bill says, flinging open the door and allowing it to bang against the wall. “You’re smarter than what the boys upstairs give you credit for.”

“Thank you,” Jim replies dryly, allowing Bill to lead him outside again. He’s completely bemused, but what else can he do?

Finally, they reach one of the buildings—“Ah, the hallowed halls of learning”—where, to Jim’s surprise, his younger self is reading a newspaper, book bag slung over his shoulder. His face is set in a hard scowl, and the more his eyes travel down the paper, the more his fingers clench into fists.

“There we are,” Bill says cheerfully.

Both watch as Jim skims the paper, winces, and crumples it up before tossing it in a bin. He grabs a few more copies, even going into classrooms and swiping them before the professors notice, and repeats the action. Jim cautiously walks up to one of the bins, his younger self involved in furiously binning the newspapers, and unfolds the thin-leafed paper.

“’Real or Surreal? An Oxford Eye,’” Jim reads aloud, then balls it up before tossing it back into the bin where it belongs. “That bloody thing.” He hated every single word, each one that mocked Bill, mocked his art, mocked Jim—but the last part he could bear, was used to, even.

“You were always so good to me,” Bill says casually, watching him. “More than I deserve, really.”

“You found out anyway, if you recall,” Jim says.

“I do,” Bill replies, then gestures with his right hand. “Want to cut right to the show?”

Before Jim can so much as blink, they’re in Bill’s dorm, Bill reading the cutting review in a loud, over-the-top voice, complete with dramatic gesticulations. Jim watches his younger self, perched on the bed, flicker between amusement and indignation, watching Bill pace the floor like a stage.

Bill is lightning in a bottle, pale blue eyes flashing, teeth bared in a mocking smile, and Jim remembers the rush of fondness, the admiration. He’s the lamp that attracts all the moths, all of them clinging to his coat, admirers wanting to be part of the glow—

“..And—well, what rubbish,” Bill declares, tossing the paper to the floor. The article drifts and lands on Jim’s foot, the last, sneering portion: _We understand that the distinguished Mr James Prideaux took time off from his cricket in order to help hang the canvases. He would have done better, in our opinion, to remain in the Banbury Road. However, since his role of Dobbin to the arts was the only heartfelt thing about the whole occasion, perhaps we had better not sneer too loud..._

But Bill, Jim knows, knows what he and Jim have is different, something no one—the classmates, the tutors, the Circus—could ever understand.

“Fuck them, Jim,” Bill’s now saying, kicking aside the paper, and Jim nearly flinches when the shoe neatly passes through his ankle, as insubstantial as a projection. He hears a low laugh from his right. “Fuck the lot of them. Now, I have some vodka; isn’t that what artists partake in when they receive such reviews?”

“They don’t know a damn thing,” Jim-on-the-bed snaps, then is rewarded with a hard kiss, Bill’s hands going to the small of his back—

“Come now, you’ve lived through this,” Bill—this Bill—teases.

“All the same, I feel like we should give these two some privacy,” Jim says, not moving his gaze from the floor. He’s seen and heard people fuck before, but seeing _them_ makes a coil of something uneasy form in his gut.

“They _are_ us.”

 _Somewhat,_ Jim thinks. “What exactly is this? There seems to be no point to this bloody dream.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have drank so much vodka after Control’s brandy—

“That is something you’ll have to figure out for yourself,” Bill says.

“Don’t play games with me, Bill,” Jim snaps, trying to block out the moans and hisses coming from the bed. Fucking Bill isn’t planning to move them, is he? “If I could only wake up!”

“Yes,” Bill says, only now, he looks less like himself—tired, pale, jacket hanging over what looks like pyjamas—then flashes back to the suit and glasses. “If only you could.”

“Right,” Jim mutters. He _really_ should have laid off the vodka.

“Listen to me, Jim,” Bill says, serious now. The noise suddenly turns off, as if a plug has been pulled, and Jim turns to face him. “There is a point to all of this. I told you that a bit earlier.”

Jim shakes his head, but replays their interactions. “You quoted Dickens,” he says slowly, “from _A Christmas—_ no. No, fuck off.” Is this a lesson for _him?_ What has he done that other Circus members haven’t done? Is everyone—Bill, George, even Percy—suffering through this indignity?

And wouldn’t Bill be pleased, having a higher power take notice of them? They’d debated it at Oxford, minds swimming and words slurred and limbs boneless, as all students did, coming to the conclusion that there seemed to be nothing out there. The war and the following events had only confirmed it.

“You’ve hit it,” Bill replies, and before Jim can demand answers, gestures. “Follow me.”

* * *

Each time Jim tries to probe Bill further, Bill only shakes him off, muttering excuses. They step through scenes, all of them from different periods of their lives—but always together. He sees himself running point for Bill, staking out with their shoulders touching, fingers on the triggers of guns, sparring with practiced ease, bantering during Circus meetings, and furtive hands in dark corners.

Watching them, Jim feels an unusual nostalgia. What they always did was ugly, but there was a sense of optimism tied to it all. They were Britain, they would win, and they would beat back the forces that were trying to conquer their home; Jim had Winston Churchill and the famous Queen Elizabeth armada speech and Bill’s energetic determination by his side, steadfast and true.

They look almost unbearably young, deft and determined and shining. Neither of them had grey in their hair, aches when they rose from whatever they’d been resting on, or a permanent line between their eyes.

Neither of them knows what the future holds.

Jim pities them. Jim envies them.

“We were a good team,” Jim finally says. _Were_.

Bill only looks at him. He seems tired, less talkative than he was in the beginning, but still retains the same youthful face. “Weren’t we? They talk about us still—the Haydon-Prideaux partnership.”

Jim watches as his younger self, face set in tense determination as Bill, in front of him, creeps towards an abandoned building. _Watch my back,_ Bill had said, and Jim had tartly replied, _Haven’t I always?_

“I know that,” Jim says. He doesn’t mention the insinuations that everyone but Smiley had seemed interested in. They wanted something salacious, something sensational, necks stretching in all areas not related to spying. The Circus gossiped as much as secondary school students.

He then hears more laughter—busy chatter and reckless shouting. There’s a chill that nips through his clothes, something like steam hitting his face. The smell of coffee—burnt and strong—hits his nose. “What is this now?”

Bill sighs. There are lines growing in between his forehead. “I saved the best for last.”

Jim turns away, then spots himself nursing a coffee cup between his hands, the steam rising in the air. He’s hunched over, the ratty grey coat that had been with him since secondary doing him no favors, eyes hungrily drinking in the push of people around him. Clouds are beginning to roll in, but no one is making a move to get back to the dorms. There’s a warmth and crackling energy everyone but he feels.

But then—but then—during his idle scanning of the crowd, his eyes meet someone else’s.

Jim watches himself startle, then forehead crease in confusion when the stranger strolls closer to him. He’s tall and lean and blue-eyed, walking with the stride of someone who knows people will clear a path for him. “Yavas Lagloo,” he says, in a truly deplorable Russian accent.

“Oh.” The boy—really, he _is_ a boy, living on his own for the first time in his life—blinks, swiveling his head to see if there’s someone else this stranger’s really addressing. It’s happened before in the quad, in the hallways, where a wave was meant for someone else, always someone else. “Hullo.”

The stranger’s eyes dance, the corners of his mouth quirking up, and Jim remembers this, inwardly cursing himself for being so slow, so stupid, compared to him. “What is your dilemma?”

“…I haven’t got one” is his weak reply, but a smile slowly spreads across his face when the stranger introduces himself and soon, without hesitation, he’s following him to the center of the room—

“Ah, Jim, it’s time for me to go,” Bill breaks in mournfully, and Jim startles as the two young men in front of them freeze like someone’s hit the pause button on the telly. “I’m afraid I monopolized the next player’s time.”

“As you wont to do,” Jim says, then shakes his head at the absurdity of all this, this trip down memory lane.

A thought comes to him, his stomach suddenly tight with irrational dread. “Wait. But—you’re not a ghost, are you? You’re not dead.”

“No,” Bill says, with a quick shake of his head. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.” His voice gentles, and he places one hand on Jim’s shoulder, uncalloused and unmarked. “Really, Jim, I must leave.”

“Wait—” Jim protests, but without looking back, Bill strides away from him, growing older and older with each step, until he vanishes.

* * *

  _Now what?_ he thinks.

And as if in answer, the world around him shifts all at once. Gone is the office to a brightly-lit room, crammed full of tables and whiskey glasses and familiar faces. Jim looks down at his body—that, at least, is familiar with an ill-fitting suit and scarred hands—then at the paper streamers strewn in every corner, the dancers waltzing on the floor, the Christmas tree shoved in one of the corners.

Jim’s in the middle of it all, bodies moving around him, swaying to the beat playing: “ _He’s not the first! He’s not the first! He’s the second-best secret agent in the whole wide world—”_

This time, though, Jim doesn’t see himself, not even up against a wall. As he’s looking around, though, he sees Bill again, striding towards him with a smile. _You came back,_ he almost says, but this Bill feels different—older, more familiar to the one he knows.

He can only watch as Bill’s hand bumps against his as he clinks his glass against Jim’s. “Happy Christmas, Jim.”

“Yes,” Jim says dazedly. “Happy Christmas to you as well.” He might not know what’s going on, but there doesn’t seem any harm in following the script—what he remembers, that is.

In the background, he still hears people singing. He can also feel the warmth in the room, the glass in his hand, the gritty floor beneath his feet—but what is this? When is…this supposed to be over?

“…And yes.”

Jim shakes his head, then tries for a quick smile. “What?”

“You’re distracted tonight,” Bill says, smiling. “I’d ask if you had too many, but Percy’s recipe won't set in unless you have, oh, another five glasses or two.”

“No, no,” Jim says, somewhat stupidly. “I was just...I’m tired, I suppose.”

“Have you been getting enough rest?” Bill asks, tilting his head.

“What’s rest?” Jim retorts, gratified when Bill chuckles in response.

“Fair enough,” Bill says, “but it’s understandable, considering you just got back from Czecho.”

“Yes, it was.” Jim says. Of course it always turned to business, the gulf between them—Bill soaring up, up, up to the fifth floor, wheeling his bicycle past him on the way up, always in a hurry. “You seem to know everything that’s going on. Why bother asking me?”

“I don’t know everything,” Bill says, taking another sip of his drink.

 _You don’t, do you?_ “Keep that up, and you’ll be in Control’s seat.”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Bill says, then his eyes lift and move beyond Jim. His head then ducks in a playful nod. “I believe I’ll be getting another drink.”

“Yes,” Jim says thinly, knowing what’s about to happen next, “yes.”

Bill tips his glass towards him in a parody of a toast, then strolls over towards Ann Smiley, who has one cigarette between her fingers and swaying in her seat. She’s wearing a dress too bright, almost gaudy, but George is smiling at her as if he’s never seen anyone else before, oblivious to Bill creeping up behind him with a charming smile on his lips.

Jim’s feet, just as they did before, stride to the corridor, away from the laughter and dancing and streamers, towards the garden. No one calls out to him, asking him to participate in another toast or a dance. The wives and girlfriends don’t spare him even a polite glance. Even Connie, knocking back another drink, doesn’t wave.

He wonders why he bothered coming to a party where no one cared whether he was there or not. There had been no mission for him that evening, not even a brief of the next one, and he had no plans. Jim thinks he almost would have preferred sitting at home alone, nursing a bottle of vodka.

Of course, Jim remembers the reason. He’d heard through the grapevine, just as he was heading out the door, that Bill would show up. There had been a flash of hope that something would be different, for no other reason other than that Bill would be there in a non-work-related capacity.

He had been a fool.  

Just then, Jim feels a presence behind him and turns around, expecting another specter, another Bill.

But it’s not.

“What are you…?” Jim asks, half already knowing the answer.

“Only observing with you, Jim,” Control says.

Jim turns away, not wanting to see this part. He knows the familiar way Bill’s hands find the clasps of Ann’s red party dress, how Ann tips her head back with closed eyes, how both of them haven’t bothered to conceal themselves behind the hedges. The cup in his hand has gone warm, with the ice cubes melting into the scotch and the glass ridges pressing into his palm. He recognizes Smiley looking through the window, a stricken look of betrayal and shock playing across his usually inscrutable face, as everyone in the next room chatters sings along to that booming Russian anthem.

He doesn’t know would have been worse: if Bill had spotted him or if Bill continued to ignore him. It doesn’t matter, though; they haven’t truly interacted in ages, only speaking briefly while passing each other in the halls at HQ or when one of them is making tea in the breakroom. There are no phone calls, no secret knocks at night, no significant or secretive looks across the room.

“Clever,” Control muses beside him.

Jim whirls on him, his brief shock at forgetting he was there quickly evaporating into anger. “What?” he demands.

“I’m only putting it together,” Control replies. He takes a sip of brandy, though Jim doesn’t know how the hell he got a hold of it in the first place. “Clever,” he repeats.

For a moment, Jim says nothing, simply stewing in his anger, as Control continues to watch. He wants to leave, wants to wake up, but he can’t move.

“Jim,” Control says, with a touch of impatience. “Why do you think you’re here?”

“Too much vodka,” Jim retorts, and Control laughs.

“That might be,” he says, “but there’s something different, isn’t there?”

Jim doesn’t reply. Instead, he takes another sip of his drink. Even in…whatever this is, he doesn’t walk away from Control.

“Jim,” Control says, “if you will?”

Jim stiffly nods and follows. The party fades behind him like a radio turning down, colors vanishing and blinking in greyness. Instead of seamlessly shifting into another scene, they keep walking down the strangely-empty streets of London. The only light comes from the streetlamps, and when Jim looks down at his and Control’s feet crunching on the pavement, there are no shadows and no footprints, only soundless steps.

“Where are we going?” Jim demands.

Control doesn’t answer. He keeps walking, obviously set on a destination.

Counting to ten—first in English, then in French, then in German, then in Czech—Jim waits before pursuing this further, keeping his tone calm. Yelling got you nowhere with Control.

“One of the top five,” Control suddenly mutters, seemingly under his breath. His right hand spreads wide, ungloved fingers spread, and Jim realizes the glass he’d been drinking out of has vanished. In a sing-song chant, Control continues: “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor…”

“Rich man, poorman, beggarman, thief,” Jim automatically finishes.

Control nods, but doesn’t look back at him.

“Alleline is Tinker,” Jim recites slowly. “Haydon is Tailor. Bland is Soldier. Esterhause is Poorman. Smiley is Beggarman.” He closes his eyes, remembering the photographs taped on the wall, the crayons and scattered pieces of paper, the half-empty bottles of sherry. “Is this what this is about?”

Control keeps muttering to himself, seemingly lost: “Five fingers to a hand…”

“If you really want to know who the mole is,” Jim says, “we can look into each of the five men you told me about. No one can see or hear us.”

Seemingly deaf to his suggestions, Control keeps walking, and Jim considers simply leaving him here, going at this alone. But he doesn’t know whether the real Control will know about this when it’s all over. His realism scoffs, telling him for the tenth time that this is nothing more than a dream. But his suspicion, honed by several decades, keeps him silent—and there’s also the fact he doesn’t know exactly what’s going on—no brief, no files, no meetings.

Finally, they come to a familiar house, the lights on in only one room. He hears a woman’s laughter, high and playful. Other than the faint voices, Jim can’t hear anything else; people must be asleep.

Control leads the way, going right up to the door, and before Jim can blink, they’re inside. The time on the grandfather clock tells Jim that it’s very, very late, and the open diary on the coffee table with the scrawling cursive lets him know that it’s—

It’s today—tonight, really. The same night he left Control and the hotel room.

And this is Bill’s house.

There’s another burst of laughter, and he recognizes Ann’s voice: “And really, you scoundrel, what do you want from me tomorrow night? You can’t possibly be just delivering a daub!”

“…Because I want to see _you_ ,” Bill replies.

Jim stops dead. All he can feel is a sense of resignation. Because yes, this is where Bill is now, not working on some grand scheme of the fifth floor or going through files and surveillance tapes or even setting up another painting. He’s here with George’s wife, charming and debonair and willfully oblivious.

He knows about the sailor boy. The woman with the son whose father is unknown. The ones that come and go, the partners he only hears about through the Circus gossip.

All of the sudden, he feels very lonely—Bill rising up from floor to floor, passing in the hallways without a second glance, nothing more than an exchange of pleasantries in the break room. Juju man isn't even a secret code between them anymore; he hears it passed around as yet another item in a spy’s jargon.

Jim can’t be resentful. There was no promise to keep it between them only—and Bill couldn’t help that his star was rising. He wasn't meant to be just a field agent. He wasn’t meant to be kept in the shadows, as an ordinary man—

Control is watching him now, eyes narrowed, and Jim straightens up, defensive, as more of the banter filters out through the hallway. Bill looks as if he’s come home from work, jacket stitched with diamonds hanging loosely off his shoulders and shirt partially unbuttoned, right down to the neatly-laced leather shoes with the absurd red socks. The only thing that seems to be missing are his glasses.

“…you have nothing better to do?” Ann is asking, a pout in her voice.

“You got me, my lady. Absolutely nothing.”

A dramatic sigh. “Very well. Are we examining this artwork you brought me? Analyzing it? Studying and comparing it to the great masters?”

“Not on your life,” Bill scolds. Stepping forward, Jim sees him wind the cord around his finger, smirking playfully into the receiver. “Talking would be wasted.”

“Jim.”

He doesn’t turn around. “I’ve seen what I needed to see.”

“I don’t think you did,” Control says. He looks a little younger now, coat not as rumpled and less grey on the temples, as commanding and imposing as he did during Whitehall. Jim blinks, and Control again appears as an old man, glasses crooked and voice straining to keep up with his thoughts. “You know a little more, but not the whole picture.”

“I know Bill.”

“Not the man.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Control looks outside at the swirling snow, at the quiet street. “Percy’s new friends,” he muses, seemingly to himself, “Smiley’s suspicions. Do you have any?”

Impatiently, Jim shakes his head.

“You think I’m mad,” Control says. “You think there is no one. You think you know these men, know this organization, know that we follow our ideals. But which? What ideals?”

“You’re beginning to sound like George.”

Control smiles, a bit vaguely. “Do I? Well. But we’re at the mercy of the Russians. It’s a wrestle for control. The Americans know it. The West knows it. I know it. We’re being compromised, Jim, all of us. None of us are truly safe. The war is over, but the guns are still trained, soldiers still at ready, the powder keg steaming below us…”

He’s learned to nod through Control’s rants, but can’t help himself: “I’ll go, Control. I’ll find out who it is. You know I will.”

“Yes,” Control says softly. He looks very tired all of the sudden. “I do.”

They’re quiet for a moment. All Jim can think about is Bill smiling at him from across the room in that crowded room a long time ago, then doing the same with Ann. Whatever they had is gone.

He then hears the phone being put on the hook, a clicking of a rotary. Bill, Jim thinks rather bitterly, is very popular tonight. He rather have this all end, but Control isn’t moving, ear cocked to the hallway, arms crossed. He’s muttering to himself again, but whatever it is, it’s inaudible.

“Meeting confirmed,” Bill’s saying lowly.

“Just in time, then,” someone replies, a voice Jim doesn’t recognize. “He should be arriving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Bill echoes. His voice sounds hollow now, and he looks around, straight at Jim, but doesn’t seem to see him. Jim stares back, stepping closer, as Bill’s hand tightens around the phone as he shifts in place. “That’s what I hear.”

“Did you get the name?”

There’s slight hesitation. “Ellis. Jim Ellis.”

Jim freezes. Absurdly, he thinks Control called to confirm the mission, as he did with the members of the fifth floor, but no. This had been off the books. Only he and Control knew, crammed together in that tiny motel room.

But Bill...

No. 

“Ah,” Control now says. There’s a tinge of what might be sadness or regret in his voice. “I hoped my suspicions were wrong.”

“You _are_ wrong,” Jim says, though he’d just seen what happened with his two eyes. But this is a dream, isn’t it? Dreams aren’t real.

“No, no, no,” Control mutters, “the rotten apple, five fingers to a hand…” His eyes dart, the madman the Circus now sees, the one even Jim knows that they’re thinking about replacing soon, a king to the throne—who everyone knows will sit in that chair—

“I’ll take it from here,” a voice says firmly but not unkindly.

Jim looks up into the face of George Smiley.

* * *

 With a touch on the shoulder, Control fades away, and Smiley steps into place. Instead of wearing his usual ill-fitting suit and jacket, however, Smiley instead has some odd yellow sweater, slightly receding hair, and a newfound weariness in his eyes. He steps forward, shoes not crunching on the snow, then rotates so he’s facing the now-open door, gesturing with his hand.

There’s a forest there, dark and deep, and Jim can hear the barking of dogs, the snapping of twigs, the unmistakable sound of running.

“What now?” Jim demands.

“Now, the future,” Smiley says simply.

“Well, I don’t bloody want to see it,” Jim snaps. He turns his head, looking this way and that, searching for a way out, even pinching himself.

Smiley doesn’t reply.

He has to face this to the end, doesn’t he? There is no question of it.

Taking a deep breath, Jim steps through the doorway.

Instantly, he feels a hot, sharp pain in his spine as a _crack_ pierces the night, then more, blooming on his right shoulder and back. It feels like his flesh is splitting in two. But when Jim touches where the projectiles hit their mark, his fingers come away clean.

He turns to Smiley, startled.

“Jim,” Smiley says softly, “in front of you.”

He looks.

The other Jim cries out, dropping to the forest floor. He’s sprawled like that, limbs akimbo, unmoving, as the men pick him up and move him onto a gurney into the truck. He hears what sounds like scolding and cursing in a language he does not know, sees someone place a dark hood over his shallowly-breathing body, feels the hurt deep in his bones with hot wetness seeping into his clothes.

“What happens to me?” Jim asks numbly. “I die, don’t I?”

“No,” Smiley reassures, if rather hollowly, “you survive.”

 _Not live,_ Jim thinks. They’re in another room now, stinking of cigarette smoke and sounding of fists hitting flesh. He knows, even without Smiley telling him, that he hasn’t made some grand escape or the Circus led the cavalry. He’s been abandoned. Burned. Tortured.

Jim doesn’t watch, and Smiley doesn’t force him to. “How do I get back?”

“Bill,” Smiley says. He’s got something in his hand now, turning it in his fingers. A silver cigarette lighter, engraved in thin cursive. “Bill got you back.”

“Why?” Jim demands. “Surely a dead English agent would cause less problems?”

Smiley’s expression is perfectly blank. “It might have, yes.” The cigarette lighter opens with a click. A tiny flame bobs in place. “Ann and I used to play a game when we first met. Perfectly childish, really. But sometimes, with the lights turned down, we would switch on a lamp and make shadows with our hands. They could be what we wanted. A rabbit. A bird. A dog.” The lid shuts over the light, and Smiley tucks it away into his trouser pocket. “It appeared to be an illusion, but there’s something substantial behind it.” He takes off his glasses and wipes them on the hem of his sweater, absurdly bright in this grey space. “You know our tradecraft; we’re good at saying without saying. But the strongest lie is sometimes the truth.”

“Truth,” Jim says flatly. It seems to be as faded as a worn-out dish rag. He’d lied and been lied to his entire life—as a child, as a schoolboy, as a soldier, as a spy. It almost seems meaningless.

“It took me a long while to find that out, even though it was under my nose the entire time,” Smiley says. “Was it worth it to find out? I don’t know sometimes.”

“Well, you’re supposed to be the one with all the bloody answers,” Jim retorts, turning to face him, but he now sees nothing but darkness. He knows where he is, though, outside the cricket field at Sarratt, grass beneath his feet, shining silver like blades in the moonlight. “For fuck’s sake.”

“Jim?” someone asks, and Jim’s blood runs cold. “Is that you?”

There’s a figure on the bench in front of him, a long coat draped over striped pyjamas. His face is illuminated, pale blue watching the empty cricket field. There is no sign of Nursey guards or any of the inmates; the night is perfectly still.

“Bill,” Jim says numbly, stepping forward.

“Come to say goodbye?” Bill asks. His voice is steady, but up close, Jim can see traces of dried blood just above his lip and around his nostrils, sweat shining on his temples. He fixes his gaze on the vodka bottle Jim hadn’t realized he was holding until now. “One last drink?”

Jim finds himself unscrewing the top and handing it to Bill, who takes it, ending up spilling some of the vodka down his front. His hands, Jim noticing, are trembling when he passes it back.

“When we were boys,” Bill says conversationally, “we had something like this hidden up in my room. Had it when we met—drank the whole bloody bottle. Do you remember?”

Jim shakes his head. _Did I know you?_ He wants to ask. _Did I know you at all?_

“I expect no forgiveness from you,” Bill says softly, eyes still on the cricket field. “I can tell you all about aesthetics, how England failed us, how we deserve better than to be scraping to a weakening empire. But I have a feeling—“

“Stop,” Jim says. The bottle’s dropped from his hands, alcohol spilling at their feet in a pool.

“It wasn’t Karla just making promises in the dark,” Bill says. “I know you don’t believe me, but I did it for—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses.”

“They got me,” Bill continues, a little more frantically. He’s kept this inside for years, spending all this words at once, still not looking at Jim. “Back to Russia. I’ll miss the cricket.” He smiles sardonically—no, sadly. In acceptance. “But you can never go home again.”

“Show me your face,” Jim says steadily. “You owe me that much. Make your peace.”

Bill raises his head, features glinting in the moonlight, and Jim surges forward, arms outstretched.

It’s all over within a few seconds.

It’s when Bill’s lying at his feet that Jim takes several steps back, looking at his hands. _No. No._

“Jim.” Smiley comes out from behind the trees. He looks very sorry. “Jim.”

“Is this my future?” Jim snaps, whirling on him, fists at his sides. He’s never shouted at Smiley before, not like this, but rage and pain tangle in him. “Is this what I supposed to _do_?”

Smiley stays in place without so much as a flinch. “What do you want to do?”

 _Stop this,_ Jim thinks. But he doesn’t know how, doesn’t even know if it’s even possible. Bill had started this long ago—too long to stop it.

Now beside him, Smiley sighs. “You two believed in a different England. You look forward and see what a glory it can be—Camelot. Bill looks forward and sees the end—the Isle of Wright.”

Jim sinks to the ground, right next to Bill’s body, neck wrenched in an unnatural angle. It’s all tangled up in him—Bill and England—what he fought for, what he believed in, what he loved.

Both are gone.

* * *

 Jim wakes, and he knows what he must do.

* * *

 The street is still dark and quiet. Jim’s steps are not soundless this time, but they’re soft enough that no one looks out to see a stranger trotting up their neighbor’s walkway.

He raises a hand to the door and knocks. 

After a few minutes, Bill sticks out his head and opens the door wide. He’s still in the same clothes he was in during the phone call, not even having disposed of his shoes. Shadows hang below his eyes, hiding his cheekbones, but when Bill grins, he looks as young as he once was at Oxford. “Jim? Not that I’m complaining, but what brings you here at this hour?”

 It takes everything in Jim to smile back. “Can’t an old friend turn up once in a while?”

 “Is that a roundabout way of asking for a nightcap?” Bill teases, then steps aside for Jim to come inside. “You look awfully tired.”

 The door closes behind him. Jim stays standing, his back to Bill, who saunters over to a nearby cabinet, revealing a number of decanters, lined up in a row like soldiers. “I didn’t sleep well.”

 “Perhaps a drink would help?”

 “No,” Jim says shortly, even as Bill shrugs and begins pouring himself a measure of scotch. “I’m going away.”

 Bill’s still kneeling in front of the cabinet. His face is still turned down towards the decanter, replacing the cap with deft fingers, the glass resting on the hardwood floor. “And you’ve come to say goodbye?”

 “No,” Jim says, and pulls the gun out of the inside of his jacket. The safety turns off with a sharp click, his finger settling on the trigger, pointing it at Bill’s head.

 It’s so quick that Bill has no time to do anything but raise his hands in surrender. “Jim? What exactly are you doing?”

 "You know it's me," Jim says softly, stepping closer, out of the range of the windows. The curtains are drawn, but it wouldn’t do to have a shadow or just a sliver of eyesight give him away. They don’t need witnesses.

Still facing the cabinet, on his knees, Bill asks, too calmly, “What are you talking about?" 

“You're the mole.” Saying the words somehow makes this real, realer than anything he’s seen in the last few hours. They’re out in the open, tangible and accusing. Bill is a traitor. Bill betrayed the Circus and lied to them, to him.  

Bill only laughs, but it comes out sounding like a choked sob. "What?" 

“Don't lie to me,” Jim says. “Stop lying to me.”

“Fine.” In the dark, Bill’s arms slightly lower beneath his shoulders, then rise up again. They’re perfectly still, fingers spread wide, shadows stretching them out like claws. “Let me turn around, Jim. Let me explain. Please.”

After a moment of hesitation, Jim says, “Yes.”

Just as his finger moves off the trigger, Bill spins around in one swift motion, hand groping behind him into the yawning space of the cabinet. Even in the field, Jim remembers suddenly, too late, Bill could be faster—and freezes when a handgun is brandished, aiming for his chest.

Bill’s on one knee now, thumb caressing the safety and pushing it slowly down. “What did you intend to do with me?”

Still keeping his weapon trained on him, Jim replies coolly, “I was going to tell Control. Take you in alive. What they do to you is up to them.”

“And wash your hands of me?” Bill asks. He’s slowly beginning to stand now, foot bracing him in place, the muzzle still pointed at Jim. “You don't know what they'll do to me.”  

Jim laughs hollowly. “I know what they'll do.” _I know what I won’t do._ “You’ll go back where you want to go. To Russia. Maybe they’ll give you a medal. A nice house.”

“Or a place in a gulag,” Bill retorts. His eyes are fixed on him, but Jim can see his mind working—how to distract, how to go for the door, how to escape. “They don’t take too kindly to failures.” 

Taking a deep breath, Jim steps back, finger still on the trigger, the weight of the weapon in his hands. Absurdly, his heartbeat begins to slow, calm, breath coming out steady. Bill’s eyes are rounded in the dark. His finger is light against the side of the shadow-marked gun.

Jim understands.

“You were going to send me to my death,” he continues calmly. “You were going to leave me at the mercy of your friends. Is that what you’re afraid of?”

 Bill is perfectly still. His lips shape around a word, but no sound comes out. 

“Was that your dilemma?” He lets that word settle in between them. Bill steps forward, foot knocking against the glass full of scotch. It trembles, but doesn’t fall over.

“Did you really hate us so much?” Jim asks softly. He takes one step back, then slowly begins to lower himself to the ground, to his knees, making sure Bill is watching as he clicks the safety back on and lays the gun at his feet. “Look me in the eye, then. If you're going to shoot me, shoot me. But you face someone you're going to betray in the eye.” He raises his chin, daring. “Look at me. Do it.” 

A shot rings out in the empty house. 

When Jim opens his eyes, there’s a deep gouge in the wall behind him, and the door is swung open violently at the hinges, revealing Bill, coat flapping behind him, running off into the night. 

He scrambles for the gun at his feet and aims. He has a clear shot.

But in the end, he can't pull the trigger. 

**Author's Note:**

> “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” 
> 
> ― E.M. Forster


End file.
